Reviews for Bowers & Wilkins P5 Mobile Headphones

Probably like many others, the prospect of forking out nearly 300 notes on a set of headphones does chill me to the bone, so I did a lot of research and more importantly listening to many headphones.
I initially had my heart set on the Dr Dre Studio Beats after checking them out in the Apple Store Newcastle and almost bought them then and there but I am pleased I held my passion.
As much as I liked the Dre's I just could not get away from the fact that they are a little plasticy and then when when you read the reviews on many sites you notice just how many people are having trouble with them breaking... not good.
After really just stumbling across the B&Ws and how well they were being reviewed I thought I needed to audition them.
I am not new to the B&W brand as I have Hi-Fi speakers by them, so my expection was for them to perform well, so it was off to the Apple Store to compare these with the Dre's and the Bose with my iPod and my eclectic musical taste.
I tested all three with tracks by Radiohead, Muse, Jane's Addiction, Kanye, Lupe, Zero 7, David Gilmour and Joe Purdy so a right old bag full.
Out of the three the Bose fell first, the Noise Cancelling is superb but does put a little too much pressure on your eardrums for my liking plus out of all three they were the hardest for the iPod to drive and needed turning up high to get any decent sound level.
The B&W and Dre Studio Beats both are superb but in the end it came down to two main points, firstly the Dre's plastic feel and the poor reviews online backing this up but more importantly sound quality, I feel that the sound is boosted too much in the higher frequencies and once you lock onto this it is hard to ignore. They are very good but the B&W just pips it for me.
So after a long couple of weeks I have decided on the B&Ws. With these beauties there is not plastic just a great leather and metal build. They are very comfy and most importantly they SOUND FANTASTIC. Bass response is very good and the mids and highs are handled very well. Nothing feels forced and you dont need to give yourself a break after listening, you can actually relax while listening and hear the recording as it was intended.
So do yourself a favour and go and audition these and by all means the other brands and see what you think. These things have just breezed onto the scene without a hail of hype or premiership footballers wrapping them around their necks post match and for that demand a listen.
Whichever way you go all these Headphones are fantastic but the B&Ws are just a cut above.

Great sound. Solid construction. Flex is lightweight and a tad thin (it's the single feature that has killed all my previous 'phones but it's detachable & replaceable. Nice!

Loving the magnetically attached and comfortable leather ear-pads.My head and ears usually get too hot but not with these. Volume control and mic for calls work well but are on the left hand side, getting used to that is a minor foible.

It comes with a decent carry pouch and stylish packaging. When you drop this much for a product it's reassuring to get a 2 year warranty. I'm looking forward to using these for a long time.

These amazing headphones are simply a must! I have had them less than a week and they sound better and better every day. They are worth every penny and they are quite simply an investment. Don't forget when you buy these amazing headphones you also get 3 months free of B&W Society of Sound with free Apple Lossless albums by the likes of Peter Gabriel and Charlie Winston! You will not be disappointed by these stunners!

I previously listened to my music through Beats Pro cans (mainly for the extra bass) but I wanted smaller cans as my main use for headphones are for my commute to work. I was initially apprehensive about buying these as I knew they were not going to be as bass-heavy as the Beats, and I already had it in my head that I would be disappointed with the sound signature of the P5's.

I have had the P5's for 6 weeks and I can assure you that the sound that comes out of these are better than Beats in every aspect. The bass does not rumble like the Beats, but if bass is your 'thing' I can assure you that these still have plenty of bass and will not disappoint.

To compare, when paired with an iPhone, Beats Pro's are like a car stereo with a sub woofer in the boot, bass is nearly always over emphasised. The P5's on the other hand are like good quality floor standing speakers in your lounge paired with a good sound system, the bass always ready to kick in when the song requires it. And the bass does not interfere with the mids and highs.

Another worry I had before purchasing these was the volume output, as I was used to the additional output from the powerful (un-amped) 16ohm Beats. These aren't quite as loud as the Pro's (which go way louder than most other un-amped headphones out there) but the P5's are definitely loud enough for most, and you won't need your iPhone on full volume, like I thought I would prior to using these.

Comfort wise, there is some pressure in the super-aural design as the P5's clamp to your head, but they don't clamp anywhere near as much as the Pro's, and hopefully after time the clamping may loosen a little. There is little to no sound leakage, and the P5's seem to keep noise out very well (you can feel outside noise cut-out as soon as you place these over your ears before even turning your music on!).

The only niggle I found was when the P5's are paired with my MacBook Pro, they sound slightly lacking in both volume and oomph than when paired with my iPhone. I guess the P5's were engineered to work fundamentally with Apple's portable products; which leads me to assume that people who give these a bad review are not using Apple's portable devices to power their P5's... strange, as you would have thought the MBP sound chip would easily beat any Apple portable device, this does not seem the case with the P5's though (my Beats are way louder on the MBP than through the iPhone).

To conclude, if you have Beats (any of the line-up!) and are looking for something new and smaller, or if you are in the market and cannot decide between Beats cans and the P5's, do not think twice, BUY THESE and thank me later (unless you plan to use with a non Apple portable device then I would recommend auditioning these with your device in a store before parting with your cash).

These are by far the best headphones I've ever owned. They are incredibly comfortable and the sound quality is fantastic. There are no crazy "sound enhancing" gimmicks and no need for additional batteries. The solid design that you expect from B&W does a great job of cutting out a lot of the external sound, without being uncomfortably heavy and retaining enough of the ambient sound to ensure you don't get knocked over by a bus.

With these headphones you get exactly what you pay for and I for one wont be asking for my money back anytime soon.

I bought these headphone with a little trepidation, simply due to the large price tag. I went to the Apple Store & tried a few different pairs, including both Bose, some Sennheisers, and the new Beats headphones. Most people looking at headphones of this level will probably be faced with a similar assortment to choose from. I used Hot Chip, the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, and Leonard Cohen to test them.

Beats headphones were out of the question quite early on. Whilst the bass was good and punchy, the midtones were lost, particularly when listening to classical music, where the tones can fluctuate quite rapidly from bass to treble.

Sennheisers were next to go, purely because they couldn't handle treble at all. I tried listening to a track called Evenstar on LOTR soundtrack, and the poor girl's voice was simply ruined by every set of Sennheiser headphones.

I was therefore left with Bose and B&W. The Bose headphones are, of course, appealing. The noise-cancellation is brilliant, it really is; it quite literally eliminates everything going on around you - do not even go there if you cycle!! The B&W do not have built in noise-cancellation, but, in all truth, they do the job anyway. Since getting them, I have realised that when you walk with them on, they do, slightly strangely, amplify your footsteps through your body in a really quite ephemeral way, but after 2 or 3 days I no longer noticed it.

After that, it came down to noise quality where there was only one winner. The B&Ws let you hear every last twang of a guitar string, every last beat of the drum, you can hear musicians breathing inbetween lines of a song. They are quite simply breathtaking, and look awesome too.

Fantastic build quality, comfort and sound is outstanding, i'm not claiming to be an expert on sound reproduction, but that aside they're better than any other headphones i've put on, the design is also a big selling point, they look very similar to something Bang & Olufsen would put out there with pride..

The leather ear pads are brilliant, and they make for very good sound isolators, i also have the Bose Quiet Comfort 3 (don't ask why i have two £250+ headphones) and although the B&W don't cut out as much noise such airplane engines as the Bose units it's still very very good, costs less, sounds better and wins hands down on looks!

Bought the P5's this morning after about 20 mins auditioning them in the local Apple Store and I've spent a very interesting afternoon listening to them "open up".

Out of the box, they were very good if a little congested and "dull", but after about four hours of initial running in, they're beginning to come to life. The bass is deepening beyond belief and the treble and midrange are blossoming into something really special.

They deliver raw aggression and pace throughout The Prodigy's 'Omen' and 'Thunder' tracks from the Invaders Must Die album, yet there is a true delicacy to Rachel McShane's excellent No Man's Fool. Andre Previn's reference recordings of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris demonstrate the P5's ability to separate the various parts of the orchestra allowing you to track what they are all doing irrespective of their relative volumes.

To sum up, the P5's are an astonishing pair of headphones. Only 4 hours listening so far and they're bedding in beautifully, the brilliant thing is that with use, they're only going to get better. They're build like the proverbial brick outhouse so durability shouldn't be a problem, yet they are probably the most comfortable closed back headphones I've ever used.

Worth the £250??? Oh yes, no question!!! I'm one very happy bunny. :D

Ive owned these headphones for a good few months now and now they are broken in i can write my review with accuracy unlike MS From Bourne!!!!
These are by far the best iphone/ipod headphones on the market. MS you should realise that there is no need at all for bass and treble adjustment and stupid equalizers!!! this is hifi at its most pure not some rubbish covered in lights and pointless gimmicks!!!
As for looks and quality im sure im not alone when i say these are the best looking best made headphones you can buy specifically for iphone/ipod.and for that matter most other headphones struggle to keep up with these.
MS you clearly have very little knowledge of quality hi fidelity equipment or music, maybe you should listen to some high quality lossless audio and then make your judgement. these are not dr dre beats that hammer out ridiculous levels of bass! ive owned them so i can comment.
these are refined high quality audio headphones from a name that is synonomous with producing the best loudspeakers known to man(nautilus) to name just one. they are used by abby road studios who im sure have an idea of what music should sound like.
as for the headphones they are brilliant never sounding harsh or tinny. always on the money with highs and mids, even on bass heavy tracks the vocals are clear and rich involving you and drawing you in as if your sat in the studio where the track is being produced.
i cannot praise these headphones enough to be honest, what with the memory foam ear pads that are wrapped in the softest leather i have ever felt, to the solid highly polished chrome and aluminum they are a joy to look at as much as to listen to.
i also have the FiiO E7 headphone amp and this really brings them to another level!!!
if you want to look like an idiot who thinks hes cool buy the beats, if you want real understated track proven quality and the most natural sound you will hear at this money its a no brainer the P5s are the kings/gods/ daddy!!
go to the apple store and please listen to them for a while not 30 seconds you will be blown away!!!!

I must have been through at least 5 different headphones starting from the reasonably cheap to the tres expensive ones. All the while hoping I could find something that would play sound in a manner the musician truly intended and not enhanced or diminished in its essence. I am no audiophile but I can sense purity when I see it or hear it. And now my search is over with the discovery and finally possesion of these magnificent headphones.

As I write this review I am listening to music on the P5 and the quality I feel is assuring my conviction that this is the one for me and I will not settle for anything else after this.